Computer networks such as LAN's (local area networks) have become one of the most important devices for storing and sharing data in business. Thus, computer networks have become one of the most critical pieces of equipment in a business office. A failure in the computer network can cause business operations to grind to a halt. Computer networks typically have numerous personal computers and other data processing devices connected together for information exchange. At the heart of the computer network are one or more file servers. In most computer networks, file servers administer and store the documents generated by each of the personal computers (PC's) in the system. In addition to managing the network, file servers also include the capability to monitor faults in themselves and the computer network. If a fault is detected, the file server provides a warning of the fault and in certain instances may also provide diagnostic operations, and may even implement corrective measures.
Servers are designed to provide client work stations with fast access to files and applications stored by the server. Accordingly, file servers embody a computer which responds to an operating system program (a popular operating system being, for example, WINDOWS®, or LINUX®) to not only orchestrate the files but also to maintain file security, file backup, or other file management features. Recently there has been a steady increase in the number of servers that are used in businesses. The trend places one or more servers at each location of a business, rather than using a single main frame computer at a centralized location. Typically, a company has an individual or department responsible for administering all of the file servers. In many instances, the administrator or administration department is headquartered at one site. Thus, each of the servers must be maintained and monitored remotely.
Monitoring may involve gathering and interpreting management, health and performance information about individual computer systems and file servers. Numerous monitoring systems are available to automatically alert designated persons when a computer system, file server or software application has failed. When such a failure occurs, the persons being notified may be in a remote location and not able to directly access the failed PC.
Products such as Compaq Server Manager® and Compaq Insight Manager®, have attempted to address some of the issues involved in managing distributed servers. These products permit an administrator to access certain information provided on the server. Compaq's Insight Manager® permits local and remote notification of errors. Insight Manager® also collects and monitors server data as well as data from each client in the network and allows the network manager to act on the data.
It is certainly beneficial to monitor certain server functions. Downtime caused by server failure may be the most costly expense incurred in running a distributed computer system. The causes of server failure or “crash” are numerous. Any number of malfunctions or design flaws associated with the server hardware, server operating system or application programs running on a server may cause a server to crash. If a server crashes, then file access is often lost and business records are temporarily inaccessible until the cause of failure is fixed.
Typically monitoring is achieved by interfacing monitoring hardware and sensors that gather management, health, and performance information on the computer system, with the operating system. To interface the monitoring hardware and sensors, users install and maintain complex drivers and programs to gather and interpret the management, health, and performance information. The burden of maintaining these drivers to support the monitoring hardware and sensors is often significant. In fact, this burden can be so great that users often choose not to install these management/monitoring functions in order to avoid this burden.
Additionally, companies often develop special proprietary drivers as part of management packages that gather and interpret management, health, and performance information from the monitoring hardware and sensors. These drivers require ongoing support to ensure proper operation with new hardware platforms and operating systems. Additionally, “open source” operating systems, such as LINUX, require that the source code associated with drivers operating within the “open source” operating system be freely available and “open source” themselves. As companies have often spent significant resources developing the management hardware and software drivers to support the management hardware, the companies do not typically want to freely provide this proprietary source code.